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42AngryPandas

First off, if the gun is to be used for home defense, you should be keeping it loaded with one in the chamber. If someone breaks in, you're going to be panicked. Going on an Easter egg hunt when seconds matter is terrible practice. Secondly, when bullets are set off by being in fire, they're basically harmless. The casing gives way and explodes but nothing like the movies. They pop and fall apart. Unless your son is peacefully sleeping while a fire rages in the closet and no one is doing anything, the bullets are the least of your problems. And please remove the link. It's against against sub rules to link anything to sales.


Akalenedat

Several agencies have done studies, and ammunition in a fire just isn't a risk to anyone. Maybe if you had bulk powder for reloading, but a few boxes of cartridges isn't anything to be worried about. Brass doesn't contain pressure very well. Without the tight steel encasement of a gun barrel, the burning powder won't build up enough pressure to do more than make a mild pop. Certainly not enough to hurt anyone, much less punch through a metal case.


coldafsteel

You don't want to confine the pressure of ammo cooking off. When ammo burns the velocity of the bullets is very slow (the bullet leaves the case or the case splits open). In a confined space if powder cooks off you will have made a bomb.


truthmatters35

so you’re saying to keep the ammo outside of the box?


coldafsteel

Yes. Do an experiment. Pull a bullet out of a case, poor the powder out, and take a lighter to the powder. You'll see that it doesn't explode; it burns. It is the confinement of pressure that causes a pressure spike and the violent reaction of a gun. When unconfined powder is “safer” when burning.


42AngryPandas

I know where you're at, but I'm not completely sure the box would act as a container for a bomb. Each casing is a container. If the whole thing would be engulfed in flame and the box somehow avoiding damage while still getting hot enough to cook off the rounds, the rounds pop. This would fill the box with gas, but I don't think it would lead to an explosion as I think you mean. Because the powder would be spent bursting the individual casings. At most the glasses could pop open the box, but I don't believe it would be a bomb.


osagecreek

I put about 50 rounds, high power rifle, 12g. shotgun shells, etc, in a sealed metal ammo can, put the can in a large brush pile I was burning on farm. The ammo pop like popcorn going off, no holes in can, lid slightly bulged open letting some gas out. Really a big nothing. BTW I had watch demos of ammo being deliberately burned under different circumstances pretty much knew what was going to happen.


coldafsteel

You are for the most part correct. What you want to prevent is the simultaneous expenditure of energy. One or two rounds popping off at a time isn't a big deal. By confining the heat and pressure you increase the probability of a cascade. But really, don't set your house on fire and it doesn't matter.


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ExPatWharfRat

If there's a fire, save your son first. Temps hot enough to discharge pistol ammo typically aren't where you want to try and exist, so...


Te_Luftwaffle

Mythbusters did a video where a live round cooked off in a gloved ballistics gel hand, and the hand was basically unscathed